


A Spark

by JayceCarter



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Mistaken Identity, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, Shameless Smut, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-06-22 04:06:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15573390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: What better way to relax then a no strings attached one-night-stand? However, things do not remain so simple or relaxing for Jane Shepard when it turns out her fling is also the very man she was sent to find: Thane Krios, the galaxy's most feared assassin.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt (for once not sad!): Mistaken Identity 
> 
> Obviously, I played with canon here and changed up the meeting and whatnot. Never let canon get in the way of smut. <3

  
  


Jane rubbed her fingers against the bridge of her nose as she walked one of the lower areas if Illium. Liara had suggested she remain in the busier areas, but Jane loathed the extravagance and abuse she saw. They liked to talk about freedom, but it really was nothing more than an excuse for the abuse of those who had no other options.

She’d have preferred to avoid the planet altogether, but the Illusive man had sent her her next name. Thane Krios, an assassin with a target on Illium. She had precious few other details, the man having kept himself private enough even the Illusive Man knew nothing more than his name and a planet to pick up the trail. Though, Jane supposed a low profile would bode well for any assassin. She’d already picked up the trail, but she’d have no way to find him until the following night.

It gave her one evening to relax, to take her mind off the mission, off what she needed to do.

So, instead of wasting her time at The Eternity bar, Jane had taken her drink and headed for the less savory areas where people who lacked the clout and credits spent their time. It meant she had to carry a sidearm and keep her wits about her, but she’d prefer it to everything fake in the rest of the space.

Though, it did mean she found no surprise in a tail, someone who’d followed her from the bar and through the endless corridors and hallways as if she couldn’t have spotted him a mile away.

Part of her struggled with annoyance that he’d attack the legendary Commander Shepard, and the other found some strange freedom in the rare moments of anonymity. So much of the time everyone knew her. She couldn’t step foot on the Citadel without a crowd, couldn’t go anywhere without people recognizing her. Being unknown and underestimated was both strange and exciting. 

Not that the freedom would go far. She wasn’t about to be robbed or murdered just so she could enjoy some fantasy of being just anyone.

Jane passed a corner, focused on the fall of the heavy steps behind her. Turian, taller than Garrus, steps uneven. About all turian’s did some military service, which meant even those not traditionally trained including civilians held a fair amount of danger. Between their size, their strength, and their claws, any turian could prove a formidable enemy.

She opened her hand, then squeezed it closed. One good blast from her biotics and he’d go down. She’d call in security to pick him up so he couldn’t try that with others, with those who might not be able to handle it.

She turned another corridor, then rushed a few feet for distance until someone stepped from a corner and into her way. He didn’t grab at her, didn’t show any sign of aggression toward her.

Good enough.

“I’m afraid you have someone following you.” His voice came out with a slight vibration, similar to turian. She’d never heard a drell speak before, had never met on in person, but she made it her business to know the races she might encounter. The scales and the frill gave him away.

“I noticed.” 

He inclined his head, a soft nod before stepping aside. “I would suggest you make a left at the next corner and take the elevator up three floors. That will take you to a more hospitable area. I will take care of your friend.” 

Jane lifted an eyebrow at the offer. When had anyone last offered to fight her battles? Wrex enjoyed jumping into the fray, but he did so not out of concern for her but because he enjoyed the fight. Garrus liked to toss her in first because he found it funny.

This man seemed to want to take care of her. She almost wanted to take him up on it, to know how it felt to sit back and let someone else carry the burdens.

But, that wasn’t her.

Instead, she offered a smile and handed him her drink. “Hold this, please?”

The turian took the corner as she turned, his gaze darting between the two and his approach saying he’d found neither concerning. “Two instead of one? Must be my lucky day.”

“Not so lucky. Praying upon the weak catches up with everyone. Every predator eventually chooses the wrong prey, eventually stumbles upon a larger predator,” the drell said.

Jane cast a glare over her shoulder. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t just call me weak.”

“I only meant-”

“-call me weak again and see what-”

“-criminals such as him like to fall upon those who cannot defend-”

“-you are just digging yourself deeper-”

The turian cleared his throat. “Are you two going to just fight with each other?”

Jane pointed her finger at the turian. “Are you in a hurry to have your ass kicked? Because you’ll get your turn.”

“Come, now.” The drell took a step backward and held his arm out like some gentleman showing her the way to a show. “This is no place for you.”

The turian pulled his weapon, a shotgun, and leveled it at the other two. He waved it as if to catch their attention. 

Jane and the drell tossed bored looked the turian’s way before resuming their argument. 

“I don’t need some stranger rescuing me, thank you very much.”

“You are behaving foolishly, and I refuse to allow your death to rest on my shoulders. Do not think I am above putting you over my shoulder and carrying you from this place.”

The idea of that had her smiling. To think of the rumors if Jane Shepard were seen being carried through Illium like some damsel. Not that Garrus or Wrex hadn’t carried her from enough places, but they didn’t treat her like a fragile princess. In fact, once Garrus had stopped at each passer-by and held her up for holograms for fans. She’d never live down the drunken disaster.

“Well, try not to spill my drink.” 

The turian must have grown tired of being ignored because he lifted the shotgun and braced his feet for the recoil. 

Jane twisted, hand raised, and released a biotic push, throwing him backward and against the wall. The crack that filled the space was likely from his suit, but he didn’t move after he struck the floor.

Jane turned back to the drell and plucked her drink from his hand. 

The drell tilted his head, gaze drifting from head to foot on her with a slow perusal. “Perhaps not such weak prey after all.”

“Perhaps not.” 

 

#

 

Jane laughed in the apartment Liara had given her for her stay. While she had her quarters on the Normandy, she enjoyed the quiet ease of the apartment. 

She got to be anyone when there, got to pretend she had any future she wanted. No reapers, no collectors, nothing but her and whatever future she wanted.

And the drell, right then.

He held a drink of his own, though he’d had no alcohol. He’d proven a better conversationalist than Jane had expected. A bit stuffy, a bit traditional, but clever and astute. They hadn’t exchanged names or personal information, and she had no desire to. Passing the time talking to someone who didn’t know who she was refreshed her. 

“I’ve spent much time on Illium. While beautiful, it is like any other place beneath that show. Ugliness rests below the surface. You saw it yourself.”

Jane set her feet on the table, her drink held between her thighs. “Ugliness is everywhere. I’ve seen the Citadel enough to know it’s there. It’s on Earth. It’s on Palaven, Tuchanka, everywhere. You know why? Because people are ugly and they take it with them. Doesn’t matter how far out we spread, we can’t escape it because we bring it with us.”

His hands came together, fingers lacing. “There is great darkness in the world. It spreads because people do nothing about it. However, every once in a while, someone stands against it, someone decides to try to make the world a little brighter than it had been. We have to count on those few.”

Jane understood that. Hadn’t she done that? When she’d fought Saren, when she’d come back to life, she’d tried to hold the darkness back. The drell had done so in that hallway when he’d attempted to save the life of a stranger. Not the great Commander Shepard but some human female he hadn’t known. 

She set her drink down and sat forward. “How do you do that? How do you see the light when there’s so much damned darkness creeping in?”

He unfolded his hands and held one out to her. “You find small moments among the darkness, just sparks that are worth having. Tomorrow might always be the end, so you take those moments when they show. Sometimes a spark in the middle of darkness is enough.” He didn’t push her, didn’t pressure her. He merely held the hand out, an offer he left to her.

Jane took his hand, rewarded by him pulling her into his lap. Her thighs spread around his hips, his hands moving to her sides. His body pressed against her, every line hard, evidence of the denser drell muscles. 

“My name is-”

Jane set her hand over his mouth to silence him. “I don’t want to know. I’ll be gone tomorrow, and you don’t strike me as someone who stays in one place long.”

He shifted to knock her hand away. “I will be gone after tomorrow as well.”

“Then let’s not do this whole ‘my name is’ thing, huh? What does that really mean to people like us? This isn’t forever, this isn’t the start of something, it’s just losing ourselves for one night.”

He turned his head to leave a kiss on her palm. “Just a small spark in the darkness?”

Jane reached for her top, pulling it up and over her head before tossing it to the couch. “Exactly.” 

His gaze dropped to her chest, his hands slipping up her sides, thumbs pressing in until he cupped her breasts. They didn’t fill his palms, but she’d outgrown worry about things like that.

She wasn’t some strumpet with a large rack, thin waist, and perfect skin. She’d honed her body into a useful weapon, giving her a more masculine figure. Breasts that barely filled a cups and didn’t need a bra, a waist thickened by muscles, and shoulders made wide by years of training. Still, the years had passed when that had worried her, when she’d looked at those other women with envy.

Though, the way he touched her, the way his eyes focused on her skin had her back arching into his touch. 

His thumbs brushed her nipples, the touch light but enough for them to tighten to peaks. “Your softness pleases me. There is not much softness in my life.”

“If you’re looking for softness, you’ve picked the wrong partner for tonight.” 

He used his hand to lift her breast like an offering, the green of his scales stark against the pale of her skin. “You are soft. You have skin that could be pierced with little pressure. Your breast rests in my palm, conforming to my touch. I am quite certain, from what I know of female human anatomy, that there other equally soft places on your body.” 

Jane opened her mouth to respond, but he silenced her this time by leaning in and taking her nipple between his lips. His teeth scraped across it before sucking. She reached up to slide her fingers through his hair before recalling, he had none. Instead, she let them trace his frills, then laced them behind his head to hold him to her, to keep that sensation.

He broke the suction, then trailed kissed up her chest, over her collarbone and throat. His teeth raked over her jaw, his tongue soothing the sting before he took her lips in a kiss that lacked any softness.

No, the kiss held want, held lust. It was the kiss of a man who hadn’t allowed himself anything of that in a long time.

So Jane let herself fall into it as well.

She moved her hands down to his front, fingers trying to work the buckles of his outfit. Why the hell didn’t all races wear things as easy as the humans? She didn’t need a game of hide and seek along with her sex.

His soft chuckle warmed her lips as he leaned back to undo his outfit himself. 

Jane moved off his lap, toeing off her boots before undoing the button on her pants. She turned her back to him and made her way toward the bed. 

She was old enough to not care about how she looked, and also too old for sex on a couch when a perfectly good bed sat in the other room.

The rustle of fabric and then steps told her he followed.

Inside the bedroom, Jane shimmied her pants off, taking the underwear along with them. She bent forward to move them off her ankles.

Hands settled on her hips when she’d bent forward, kneading the muscle there, pulling her backward until she pressed against something she expected she’d recognize in any humanoid species. 

She pressed back against him as she stood, seeking more friction, more warmth. His scales had a smoothness to them, but the edges of them held roughness. Those chafed her but did nothing to stop her from rubbing against him.

His arms came around her, his lips playing against her throat. He grasped her breast again with one hand, his other sliding down her front, over her ribs, her stomach, until his fingers slipped between her thighs. 

She jerked forward at the bold touch, but his hold on her breast kept her still as his fingers explored her folds.

“It seems you are soft in other places, as I suspected.” 

Her mouth opened on a gasp as he slid his fused fingers into her. At his angle, he couldn’t get them far, but that didn’t stop her from spreading her thighs in a plead for more. 

She didn’t get it, however. Instead, he pulled the fingers from her and used them against her clit, now slick with her own wetness. 

“Fuck,” she whined against the touch.

Another chuckle from him, soft and breathless as his hips ground forward, his erection pressing into her lower back. “That is a lovely sound. Do you make other sounds as beautiful? I plan to pull each one from you tonight.” 

His fingers continued the stroking against her. Her hips twisted, moans falling from her lips. He listened to each sound, chased it. She knew it in the way he moved, in the way he followed each moan until she grew louder, until her hips shifting forward for enough. His attention seemed singular, focused. 

His grip never faltered, arm strong across her, fingers still toying with her breast. His lips played against her throat as his fingers sped on her clit. The orgasm rushed over her in waves, hitting her suddenly, her head thrown back to his shoulder. His lips never stopped, the sensation gentle against the chaos in her body. When the tension left her, his arm held her up. 

He shifted them forward the last few feet to the bed, twisting her so when they stretched out, she laid beneath him.

She caught a glimpse of his form, the lithe body, the way the green scales caught the light. She wanted time to savor each inch of him, to explore each curve, each rise and fall of his body. She wanted to taste the stripes that ran along his back and over his ribs, to stroke her fingers over the ridges near his back. 

However, he seemed in no hurry to allow it. He grasped her thigh and lifted it over his hip while he lips found hers again. She tasted him, his mouth more acidic than a human, almost tart. 

His cock pressed against her, but he stilled, lifting his head enough to look down at her, to speak. “I savor little. We drell have perfect memory, we forget nothing, but this?” His hips rocked forward, not enough to enter her but enough to make her wish he had. “This I wish to savor, a memory I want to take with me into the darkness.”

Her hands wrapped beneath his arms, around him so her fingers pressed into the dense muscle of his back as his hips carried forward. He inched into her, a slow advance. He filled her, the stretch causing her to arch against him, to dig her heel into his lower back and beg for more.

In fact, it took her a moment to realize she was begging. Her voice repeated ‘please’ over and over again.

“Patience,” he told her as he continued the slow movement until his pelvis pressed against hers, until he filled her entirely. 

She lifted her hips, needing friction, needing him to move. Her body squeezed down around him, still sensitive but needy. Her fingers dug into his back as she urged him on.

“Very well,” he whispered before offering a kiss to her ear. He pulled back and thrust into her, a pace too slow for her taste. Still, it was the strength behind each thrust that drew her breathless moans. He filled her, bottoming out on each stroke until she again arched her back, pressing her chest against his. The rough edges of his scales caught her nipples, a stroke that made her shiver. 

His fingers dug into the muscles of her thigh, a grip so tight she hissed. He didn’t seem to notice, and she considered he might not have been wrong. She was soft compared to him. Each place he touched her pressed in, molded. When she tightened her grip around him, his scales didn’t give at all. 

It let her give herself over to it, to let her nails press against his back, to lift her hips and take him deeper. Each thing she gave he took and offered back the same. His lips found hers again, swallowing down the moans she released like he could become drunk off them. She licked that sharp taste from his tongue as she urged him to fuck her harder.

Tomorrow she had a mission, followed by more missions, followed by something that was almost certain death. None of it mattered as he fucked her, none of it mattered when he stroked against her. 

His hips snapped harder, quickening. It seemed orgasm was much the same in most races, and the familiar motions of her partner had her tightening her cunt around him as she drove him on. He buried himself deep, his breath finally hard and short against her lips, a show that this affected him, too. His cock jerked inside her, his grips cranking down more. After a moment, he drew in a deep breath and pulled out of her. The bed groaned in the now silent room as he rolled to his back beside her. 

Neither spoke for a while. Jane noticed a lack of wetness between her thighs. She wasn’t sure drell ejaculated, or perhaps it was less than humans? She didn’t see a reason to ask right then, and that awkward question wasn’t one she wished to broach. 

The chilled air caught the sweat that covered her, causing her to shiver. 

The drell frowned before he leaned over, grabbed the folded blanket at the foot of the bed, and stretched it out over her. He didn’t move beneath it, instead turning and setting his feet on the floor. “That was. . .” His voice trailed off. 

Jane sat up but kept the blanket to her chest. “Yeah, it was.”

“I know we said we would not do names, and I understand the reason, but I want you to know that if things were different, if I was likely to see you again, I believe I would want to exchange names. If things were different, I’d want to find you again.”

A sweet thought, but if anyone knew how life worked, it was Jane. “But things aren’t different, not for either of us. Thanks for the night.”

He twisted, leaning toward her to capture her lips once more, the kiss enough for her to want to pull him back into the bed, to push off tomorrow a while longer. He only offered her a tiny taste before pulling back. “It was a spark, and one I needed before heading into the darkness. Goodbye.” 

Jane kept her mouth shut so she didn’t ask him to stay. He’d probably say yes, and neither of them needed that. Instead, he offered her one more nod before he disappeared into the living room. The rustle of clothing said he’d dressed, and then a long pause before the door opened made her wonder, had he hesitated? Had he stood there before the door and tried to talk himself into leaving? Had to convince himself to go?

Did it matter?

Jane laid back down in the bed which had grown cold and forced herself to close her eyes.

Tomorrow would come whether she wanted it to or not. She had another name to add to her team.

 

#

 

Jane faced Nassana, Wrex and Garrus by her side. After all she’d seen, she wanted to put a bullet through the asari herself. 

Between the lack of sleep from her night with the drell and the atrocities she’d seen on her trip up, she lacked patience. The woman had killed workers simply to get them out of the way, loosing dogs on them and ordering her mercs to open fire. 

It meant she had less annoyance toward the assassin. Anyone willing to take out Nassana, even for a contract, was worthy of some praise. Not to mention he’d avoided casualties and even saved a few workers along the way. 

An assassin with a soul? Probably bullshit, but a girl could hope. She needed a team, she needed allies, and this was just another name on that list. Thane Krios, the galaxy’s most feared assassin. 

A sound had Nassanna jumping and Jane grinning. To see a woman so sure of her own superiority jumpy soothed Jane’s sense of justice. A man who had gone through all the trouble this Thane had wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t let her go.

No, Nassana was dying by Thane’s hand, and Jane wouldn’t stop it, wouldn’t get in the way. Call it her present to him for saving those civilians. 

When the assassin did appear, he moved so fast in the dim light, Jane had trouble tracking. He snapped the neck of one guard, leveled another with a strike to the throat, and shot the third. Nassana turned, and he fired once more.

The entire battle lasted seconds and only he remained standing at the end. As he lowered Nassanna’s body, Jane got her first good look at him. He stared at her, unmoving in the low light of the office, silhouetted by the lights from outside the window.

The leather outfit, the black eyes, the green scales. 

Thane Krios, the assassin she needed, was the drell from the night before. 

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this came up as my next WIP to finish. It is fully written. I'll update today and then Tuesday for it (for a total of 3 chapters).

So, perhaps it was childish. Jane had managed a week without seeing Thane. He’d joined her crew, giving her little reason as to why, but she hadn’t pushed. The last thing she wanted was for Garrus or Jacob to realize how she knew Thane. The way he’d stared at her had said he’d recognized her, but he’d said nothing.

So, after assigning him a room, Jane had worked hard to not be in the same area as him. She’d ask EDI before she left if he was in the workout room, the showers, the CIC. She’d changed her entire schedule around just to avoid seeing her one night stand.

So much for easy.

Was the universe punishing her for having casual sex? Was it reminding her that she didn’t get to be anonymous like everyone else? One night of mind-blowing, random sex and what happens? She gets slapped in the face with the very man who’d made it possible.

Jane hit the button on the elevator, thankful the late hour meant Thane had to be asleep. She’d asked EDI, assured he was in his room before venturing out to find something to eat. 

Eventually, she’d have to face him, but for right then? For right then, she planned on continuing her little game of hide and seek he didn’t know he was playing.

The doors opened on the second level, and a familiar green face met her.

So, maybe he did know they were playing. 

Thane stepped into the elevator and pressed the button to the third floor without a word.

“How’d you trick EDI?”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “It wasn’t that difficult. I’m used to having to work around security systems and AIs. It took me the first day to realize you were using her to avoid me.” 

“And what was so important that you had to outsmart our AI to talk to me?” 

He reached for the pad and stopped the elevator, then turned to face her. “We must work together, Shepard. I do not wish for there to be such tension.” He clasped his hands at the small of his back. It forced his spine straight and pushed his chest out. Had he looked like that the night before? No.

When he’d stood in that hallway, when they’d touched in the bed, he’d seemed sweet, gentle, harmless. After watching how he’d killed Nassana and her guards, Jane was forced to recognize him as something more. 

It almost frightened her to think that she’d been so close to someone capable of the unattached violence she’d witnessed, and she hadn’t seen it. Jane could do her own amount of damage, as could most people she spent time with, but Thane had moved with absolute confidence, a grace in his movements that made her want to take a step backward.

The same hands that had brought her pleasure before could be lethal. 

“Why did you say yes to coming with me?”

“I hadn’t expected to live through that mission. Had you not removed the other mercenaries in the building, I would have been brought down after ending Nassana. This is time I did not expect to have.”

“Why would you go into a job expecting to not make it out?”

His head tilted. “That is a. . . long story. However, from what I’ve heard, your mission has similar odds.”

“So this is a ‘thanks for saving my life’ thing? Because I’ve made it clear that this might be a one-way trip. You’re not any better off.” 

“We spoke that night about lightness and darkness. My life as an assassin has been darkness. It has been doing what I was hired for with little thought as to the whether those things were good for the universe, good for anyone. I’ve found I’ve grown tired of that. You have afforded me an opportunity to do something good, something that matters, something to grow that light and shrink the darkness.”

“Is that all that matters to you? Just sparks?”

His inner eyelids blinked. His eyes held such darkness she had trouble reading him, and after having read him so wrong before, she didn’t trust herself. “Sparks grow to flames when given the chance. Even the universe started with just a spark.” As he spoke, he stepped closer, forcing Jane to tilt her head to keep her gaze on his eyes. 

“Is that why you’re here? Because what happened can’t happen again.”

“I would not push, but I have to wonder why.”

Jane’s neck tipped to keep staring into his eyes. “You know why. You know who I am now, you know what I’m up against. I have a timeline, Thane, and it doesn’t end with a long and happy life. If it isn’t the Omega 4 relay that gets me, it’ll be the reapers, or the geth or something else. I can’t do that, can’t go into that knowing someone is waiting for me.” She tore her gaze away, unable to stand before the quiet scrutiny of his gaze. “You wouldn’t understand.”

He stood so close, the heat of his body warmed her skin, but he didn’t touch her. “You might be surprised. Still, as I said, I will respect your choice. I will not push, ask, nor imply any relationship beyond what you ask me for. However, I would hope we could be. . .” He hesitated as if the word was clumsy from his lips. “Friends, perhaps?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Jane risked a look at him, realizing he was so close she could have closed the distance to kiss him if she just leaned forward. 

Instead, Thane took a step back, nodding and hitting the button to get the elevator moving again. “I believe friends have meals together, do they not? You have been so busy avoiding me, you have not eaten.”

Jane didn’t fight the smile at the soft admonishment. While the idea of trying to shove him back into a friend position, of trying to build some working relationships with him was daunting, she had to admit, she looked forward to talking to him some more.

 

#

 

Jane smiled as she sat across from Thane, both cross-legged on the floor of his quarters. He was trying yet again to teach her to meditate. She had so little to smile about in her life anymore, yet when she spent time with him, she could rarely stop the action.

“Stop smiling, siha,” he chided. “You’re supposed to silence your mind, not think whatever it is you’re thinking.”

“I’m not good at this.” 

“No, you’re not.” 

Jane reached out and pushed softly at his shoulder. She’d have never expected it, but they had become friends. She’d come to cherish their conversations, often in the late hours of the evening when everyone else had gone to bed. Jane would ask EDI to see if he was awake, and the answer was always yes.

Once Jane showed up to find Thane in his sweats, no shirt, his bed unmade. She suspected he’d told EDI to wake him if Jane asked for him, and that at times he’d been asleep when she’d checked. Still, she wasn’t sorry about it. 

He’d given some rhythm to her life, some sense of time passing that was more than one mission to the next. 

“How do you just not think?” Jane gave up the pretense. 

“You do think, sometimes, but the idea is to let your mind quiet. It is so loud so much of the time. Think about what the quietest time you remember was. Try to regain that peace. Try to go back to that.”

Jane closed her eyes again, back straight, hands placed on her knees. She tried to think back. Her childhood had never been quiet, not living on the streets like she had. She’d had little time to herself, little time to ever be still. 

The only silence in her past threatened to consume her. It had been the silence when she’d been spaced, where she’d had only the hiss of the air escaping and her gasping for company. It had bled out as the Normandy had burned, a silent show for her as she knew she’d die.

She’d thrashed, fighting against it even as she’d known she didn’t have a shot in hell. Her lungs had burned as the oxygen leached away, her chest hurting, her entire body hurting. 

Hands grasped her arms and shook her away from it. “Jane! Breathe!”

Her eyes snapped open, and she gasped in oxygen, precious air she’d been so sure was all gone. Jane pulled back from him and collapsed forward. Had she really died? A person shouldn’t remember dying. That was the sort of thing you were only supposed to do once and something you weren’t supposed to remember. 

“What was that?” 

Jane curled her fingers into her hair, grasping it tightly, eyes open because she was terrified if she shut them, she’d see the Normandy burning and everyone she knew leaving her behind. “I died, Thane. The last time it was really quiet was when I died.” 

He reached for her, hand moving slowly until he set it on her back, offering a soft stroke. “Thinking on one’s own death is probably not the best option when looking for calm.” 

A shudder ran through Jane, hard and fast. “I don’t want quiet. Quiet is what I think of when I think of what will be left if the reapers get their way. Quiet is what I had when I was spaced. Quiet is what’s back in my quarters. If I wanted that, I’d have stayed there.” 

Thane set his hands on her arms and pulled her closer. He shifted her until she sat between his legs, her back to his chest. He had her cross her legs again, then guided her hands to rest on her knees beside his. “Breathe with me, siha. Nice and slow.” 

The nickname eased her more than his words or direction. The sweet fondness in the name called to her. She didn’t have many people who cared enough about her for a nickname. 

“Breathe with me.” He leaned forward until his chest pressed against her back, until she could feel each inhale. “Slowly. In, hold it, out. Better.” 

Jane leaned further against him, drawn in by the heat and the rhythm of his breath. She followed it, matched it, and soon it wasn’t the silence of space she felt. It was the quiet ease of that moment, the way his breath would catch the strands of her hair on an exhale, the way his fingers twitched ever so slightly against her hands.

She turned her hands so her fingers could stroke against his palms, then continued the touch to the tops of his thighs through his sweats. 

“As always, you lack focus.”

Jane couldn’t even come up with a response as she touched the dense muscles in his legs. 

A groan, soft and so much like the ones he’d made that night they’d spent together slipped into her ear. “Siha,” he said. “This is not what you wanted.”

That snapped her out of it. Jane rose to her feet, needing distance, needing space to think. He was right; she’d said she couldn’t do that. “Sorry.” She went toward the door.

Thane caught her wrist, pulling her to a stop. He said nothing, just stared down at her.

Jane pressed her lips together, no idea what to say. The want in his gaze stilled her. They both wanted whatever this was, had danced around it for weeks, but she just couldn’t. She couldn’t keep doing what she needed to do knowing she had someone else to think about. She just didn’t have room for bullshit romance. 

“I can’t,” she whispered to the question he didn’t voice.

Thane rubbed his thumb against her wrist and nodded, releasing her. “Goodnight, siha.” 

Jane rushed from the room before she couldn’t bring herself to leave anymore. 


	3. Chapter 3

Thane in a hospital bed was something Jane didn’t know how to handle. He was steady in all things. Reserved, careful, strong. If anything, she had a tendency to hesitate when reminded of the power he wielded with ease. Seeing him sick unsettled her. Months together and he’d never said a word.

How could he not have told her?

“You’re sure?” Jane asked it of Chakwas like there might have been some mistake, like she could have been wrong, like the doctor would break into a smile and explain she’d switched the charts and Thane would be fine.

“I’m sorry, Commander, but I’m sure. He has perhaps a year left if nothing aggravates the condition.”

A year?

How was that possible? Her life had involved so much of him. He’d become the measurement by which time passed, the thing with which to count her days. Even though they never went further than the friendship she’d asked for, he’d become too important to lose.

“Can I see him?”

“Of course. He’s able to return to his quarters when he feels ready. I have already discussed the treatments that will keep him comfortable the longest, and EDI is on watch to alert us should his condition change, or he has a relapse.”  Chakwas offered a soft squeeze to Jane’s arm and stepped from the room, leaving Jane and him alone together. The windows had been closed, giving privacy to Thane. He wouldn’t want people to see him looking ill.

She walked up to the bed, steps slow.

Thane had no shirt on, a white blanket over his legs. The way he’d looked gasping for breath when he’d collapsed in the exercise room would haunt her. It reminded her of being spaced when she’d struggled but couldn’t draw air. It had been what he’d done, his green going pale. Only his was a result of his body failing, and for a man like Thane? She’d imagine that fact wounded him.

“I should have told you,” he said.

Jane sat on the edge of his bed, her back to him. “Why didn’t you?”

“Selfishness, I suppose. I liked the way you looked at me. I was afraid that if you knew, you would see me as sick, as feeble.”

“You should have told me.”

“I know.” The bed creaked, and the blankets rustled as he sat up.

“This is why you didn’t think you’d get out of Nassana’s, isn’t it? You were ready to die there because you knew you were dying anyway.”

“Yes. I had thought one last good deed might bring some sense of balance, and what better way to meet one’s end than doing something noble?”

“So why did you go with me? Just more nobility?”

“The smart answer would be yes, but I won’t lie to you. You changed my mind. After the night we spent together, when I felt something I had not felt in a long time, some sense of pleasure, of life being worth living, I was reluctant to let that go. When I saw you again, I realized I had the chance for more.”

Jane shook her head. “What? Did you think I wouldn’t find out? That you’d just fall over and die one day, and I wouldn’t care?”

“I hadn’t thought about it. I’d thought much about my death before I met you. I’d accepted it as the logical conclusion to my illness. Then I met you, I spent time with you, and I realized I wanted more. I didn’t want to just flicker out into the darkness. I suppose the time I’ve spent here, with you, I simply stopped thinking about my end. That was unfair to you, I know. After losing Irikah, I should have thought more about what my death could do to you.”

“And? You’re not someone who does things for no reason.”

He sighed and set a hand on her back. “I couldn’t not see you, not spend time with you, not take what time I had left for something that mattered to me. I’m sorry, siha, I never intended to cause you pain.”

Jane turned, lifting a knee to the bed to face him. “You’re not fighting anymore.”

His offered the smile parents offer children when they say something naive. “Of course I am. Kepral’s syndrome will kill me no matter what, and I refuse to spend that time I have left wasting away. Now, I believe the doctor said I could leave?”

Jane sighed and nodded, rising from the bed. “I’ll wait outside.”

 

#

 

“Stop pouting.” Jane set down the bag she’d taken from Chakwas, the one with Thane’s items in it. It held the medicine he needed and two large machines. One would help slow the fluid build up in his lungs, and he was to use it as often as he could, including while he slept. The other was for emergencies, a quick-acting breathing treatment that would ease the symptoms for a short time.

“I’m not pouting.” Thane hung his jacket up on the hook by the door, tension through his muscles. “I could have carried that myself.”

“I know you could have.” Jane fished out the topical ointment Chakwas had said should be applied. “Take your shirt off.”

An unhappy grumble from behind her said Thane hadn’t finished his pouting. Funny that a man capable of such violence and feared through the galaxy could behave like such a child when ill.

She supposed all men were the same, deep down.

“I’m fine.”

“You collapsed while running, Thane. You’re not fine.”

“I hadn’t realized my lung capacity had been reduced that much. Now that I’m aware, I will be more careful. That won’t happen again.”

Jane turned, open jar in her hand, to find Thane with his shirt still on. He’d changed into the loose clothing Chakwas had given him after his collapse, and she found she liked them. She’d always enjoyed when he’d dressed down, the ability to see a part of him few others glimpsed. “The shirt,” she said, nodding toward his chest. “Chakwas said you should try to not wear anything over your chest to avoid a build-up of fluid.”

Jane’s gaze stayed on his chest, he chest that was killing him. She could almost see the lungs beneath his scales, see the organs stealing him away breath by failed breath. She’d fought so many things, but there was nothing she could do to fix this.

“Don’t look at me like that, siha. That’s what I didn’t want, for you to see me as my illness. The night we met, when I knew my sickness would kill me, you had looked at me like a hero. I have had little of that in my life, done little worthy of such admiration. Please, don’t take that from me, don’t allow the illness that will take my life first take that from me.”

Jane said nothing, words stuck in her throat.

A sigh and Thane removed his shirt, dropping it on the bed.

She scooped some of the ointment onto her fingers and worked it over his chest, over the rough edges of the scales. His breathing stuttered, just soft breaks she’d never noticed before. They were warning shots, signs of the things to come. Her fingers worked the ointment into the scales as the thoughts raced.

The ointment was just a stop-gap. It was a band-aid on a death blow. It was a rag against a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding. The gasp of his lungs rattled through his chest and into her fingers.

He set a hand on hers. “I really don’t need this, siha.”

Jane let him still her hand, but she didn't lift her gaze to his. “Let me do this. I can’t do anything else, I can’t fix this, I can’t fight anything. I’m going to lose you, and all I can do is put this on you, okay?”

His fingers pressed beneath her chin to lift her face, to force her to look at him for the first time.

She expected him to look different. To look sick, to look weak, to have suddenly transformed into someone on death’s door.

Only, he didn’t. His face hadn’t changed at all, the same lines, the same frills, the same full lips. He wasn’t different at all.

“I don’t know what else to do,” she whispered.

His fingers slid over her cheek, catching tears there. “You don’t have to do anything. Just. . . “

“Just what?”

“Just stay with me, in whatever way you wish. Even as I tried to balance my life, my deeds, it never changed a thing. It never lit the darkness. Only you do that for me, siha. When you are here, it holds back the darkness.”

Jane gave in to everything. To what she’d wanted the whole time, to what he wanted, to the feelings she’d never really buried. He had a timeline too, now. Hers was based on the reapers but his? On an illness.

Maybe it made it safer, maybe it made it okay, maybe it just made it so she didn’t care anymore. The idea of waking up and knowing Thane no longer lived tore at her, so she gave in.

She dropped the jar and crossed the distance to take the kiss that had been on her mind for months. Her hands went to the back of his neck, fingers still coated in the salve, smelling of plants she couldn’t identify.

Thane returned the heavy kiss, pulling her closer until not a breath laid between them. The taste was too short before he broke the kiss and whispered against her lips. “You told me no. Don’t do something you will regret only because of my illness.”

“I’m tired of trying to resist this, tired of telling myself I can’t have the one thing I want. Please, don’t make me beg.”

He pulled back enough look into her eyes. “You need never beg, siha, not for anything I have in my power to give you.” Thane reached behind her to hold her to his chest, standing straight so her feet lifted from the ground. He stole another kiss, and the familiar touch of his lips reminded her of their one night together.

He turned them, laying her out on the bed beneath him. The smell of the ointment covered him, reminded her of the truth she tried to escape.

Thane wouldn’t let her wallow in it, however. He pulled her shirt from her, his hands skimming down her sides. His thumbs brushed her nipples, her back arching up to press into his palms, to offer herself to him.

Her pants slipped off, his hands guiding them. He took his time peeling each piece of clothing from her, his lips painting her with affection as if he’d stored it all up, as if he’d waited for this moment as much as she had.

Jane had never been a passive person, though. Her fingers grasped the waist of the pants he wore, then slipped inside. She stroked her hand over his cock, touch less frenzied than desperate. She needed to touch him like she craved water after a long run, a single-minded need that called to her.

Her lips moved over his frills, over the red that darkened with each touch. His head tilted to offer more, and Jane’s tongue caressed over the rise and fall of the thick skin there.

A groan rumbled from his chest before his fingers stroked her slit. Those fingers, agile as ever, slipped along her cunt. He parted her, slid into her, teased her. “I missed your softness, missed how warm you are, how you welcome me.”

The words were less filthy than many whispered into Jane’s ear over the years by drunken lovers, yet they pulled a stronger reaction. He spoke with absolute certainty. Not to win her over, not get her into bed, but just because he couldn’t not say it. He wasn’t some young kid looking to get lucky.

Whatever this was, it was more.

He eased her thighs around him, settling into the cradle of her hips. He worked his pants off until every inch of his body pressed against hers. The scales chafed the soft skin of her thighs, but she remembered her smile the morning after last time, when her skin had carried tiny abrasions. Each movement that aggravated had only brought smiles to her, reminded her of those moments she’d felt free and happy.

“I’ve lost myself to the memory of how you felt wrapped around me so many nights. I would let myself go back to your scent, your taste, your-” his voice rumbled low and hungry, “-softness. That draws me, riles me, and I fear I could never shake the grip you have on me. Can I have you, siha? I have little, need little, but I need you. Tell me yes, please.”

Jane hooked a leg around his hip, her lips offering a gentle kiss to his. “Yes, please.”

His breath shuddered from him, a soft whistle she’d heard when he’d collapsed. He cast aside her worries when his hips went forward and he filled her. He swallowed her gasp and her moan, licking them from her mouth.

Jane’s fingers clutched him, drew him closer like she could hold him there forever.

His muscles shifted beneath his scales, beneath her fingers. He took her with long and slow thrusts, hips rolling as he pressed into her, retreated, and did it again and again. He drove her mindless with the languid pace. His body coiled and uncoiled, his lips playing over what he could reach. Her cheeks, her lips, he kissed the freckles that dotted her nose and over her eyelids.

The war. The death. His sickness, her responsibilities, they all turned to dust.

Thane grasped her thigh to tilt her, to ensure he stroked her clit on each thrust. He rested his weight on his elbow so he could wrap a hand behind her neck to keep her close.

Jane gasped his name as she came, his lips easing her through it. His pace didn’t stop even after, and she gave herself over to him. Even as the stroking of his cock against her walls overwhelmed her, she surrendered to it, to him, to the fleeting moment.

Thane drifted toward his own release, but she suspected he did not speed toward it. Instead, he kept his movements fluid, like he had all night, like he planned to take forever between her thighs, like by staying there the rest of the world couldn’t intervene.

Nothing lasts forever, though, and eventually, Thane found his own release. He buried his face in her neck, his lips tasting the skin above her pulse as he shuddered. He pulled out of her with one last kiss to her lips.

They shifted until they rested side by side, facing each other, a short distance between them.

Thane’s breathing filled the room, noisy and uneven, the ugly truth they couldn’t seem to avoid.

Jane’s gaze drifted to his bare chest. “You said you’d do anything for me, anything I asked. Don’t leave me, not like this.”

Thane tipped her gaze up to his with a finger beneath her chin. “I said I’d do anything in my power. That, sadly, is not within my power. Do not think on it, siha. Everyone has an end, and we all move toward it. Thinking on it only rushes us toward it. Don’t speed this; let us enjoy what we have.”

Jane came forward and pressed a kiss to his chest, the medicine she’d applied clinging to her lips, the taste bitter. Or perhaps it  was the truth that sat heavy on her lips. “I’m just supposed to ignore it?”

“Yes. Be in the moment with me, in whatever moments we have. The rest will attend to itself." Thane pulled her closer. "It always does.”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen, you know? I wasn’t looking for this. I wasn’t looking to fall for someone.”

“For me either. I’ve learned life rarely does as we want it to, though often it does what we need.”

“This started small, and look what happened? It started as a-”

“-a spark?” His lips tipped up.

“Yeah. A spark. What am I supposed to do about that? It’s not a spark anymore, damn it, what do I do now?” The medicine still clung to her lips, the taste bitter.

“I’m as lost as you are, siha, so just burn with me.” He leaned in for another kiss, wiping away the bitter taste of the medicine with a promise.

Not the promise of more time, but the promise of making the time worth it.

Perhaps that’s what really mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a part two to this one planned for a 'Thane Lives' ending, since I've never written that before and damnit, they deserve happiness! It will include going over the Illusive Man. I mean, if he can bring her back from the dead, he can fix Thane. It won't make it to the top of the list for a while, but it is what is planned and on the list!
> 
> Also, my next WIP on the list is a Fallout one, "The Arrangement," a Nora/Maxson arranged marriage story. It will update on Mondays, starting next Monday.


End file.
